社会道德与债务融资——来自民营上市公司的证据

Social Morality and Debt Financing: Evidence from Private Listed Firms in China

根据Platteau (2000)[1]和Tabellini (2008)[2]的概念框架,按照社会道德不同的作用范围,本文将社会道德分为公德和私德两个层面,然后分别选取公共交通情况和私人社交的"小世界"网络的特征作为公德、私德的代理变量,进一步检验公德和私德与民营上市公司债务融资的关系。研究发现:社会道德水平与民营上市公司的债务融资成本具有反向关系,其中,私德对民营企业债务融资的影响比公德显著,这一现象在私德相对较好(公德相对缺失)的地区更加明显;同时,地方的私德水平与民营企业的银行债务比和有息债务比例均呈负相关关系,说明私德在一定程度上能够弥补民营上市公司的信贷歧视。而在剔除上市公司集聚的四大城市(北京、上海、广州和深圳)之后,上述结论依然成立。本文从一般性的角度考察了社会道德这一法律外制度对公司财务行为的影响,研究结论对地方政府如何化解中小企业融资难、优化营商环境等问题具有一定的启示。

Based on the conceptual framework of Platteau (2000) and Tabellini (2008),according to the different scope of social morality,this paper divides social morality into two levels: public morality and private morality,and then selects public traffic conditions and private individuals respectively. The characte-ristics of the "small world"social network of communication are the proxy variables of public morality and private morality,and further examine the relationship between morality and debt financing of private listed companies. The study finds that the level of social morality has an inverse relationship with the debt financing cost of private listed companies. Among them,the influence of private morality on private enterprise debt financing is more significant than that of public morality. This phenomenon is relatively good in private morality(relative lack of public morality). More obvious;at the same time,the level of private morality of the local government is negatively correlated with the bank debt ratio of private enterprises and the proportion of interest-bearing debts,indicating that private morals can compensate credit discrimination of private listed companies to a certain extent. After excluding the four major cities(listed in Beijing,Shanghai,Guangzhou and Shenzhen) where listed companies are concentrated,the above conclusions are still valid. This paper examines the impact of social morality as an extra-legal system on the company’s financial behavior from a general perspective;the research conclusions have some implications for how local governments can solve the financing difficulties of SMEs and optimize the business environment.